Jürgen Klopp drew the ire of his goal-scorer Mohamed Salah in the Premier League opener – possibly also over a missed record.
The most eye-catching scenes Liverpool FC produced in their Premier League opener at Chelsea FC on Sunday all had to do with Mohamed Salah: The 31-year-old winger hit the crossbar, set up Luis Diaz’s opening goal superbly, scored a neat working goal – and then was substituted early, which he didn’t like at all.
When Jürgen Klopp ordered him off the field in the 77th minute, Salah scowled, threw parts of his hand bandage onto the pitch, marched past his coach to the reserve bench and took his seat, annoyed. It was clear that after the 1-1 draw – as it had been before the change – Klopp had to comment on the incident again.
“No, I haven’t spoken to him yet. I don’t think you’ve ever seen it, Mo walking off the pitch happy. I don’t remember that. It’s okay,” Klopp said at the press conference, calmly asserting: Everything “no problem”.
Salah: Record missed, series snapped
Possibly Salah was also miffed because his substitution meant he no longer had a chance to set a new Premier League record this Sunday: Like only Alan Shearer, Frank Lampard and Wayne Rooney, the Egyptian has already scored eight goals on the first day of a match – no one else has managed nine. Against Chelsea, Salah failed to score in his opener for the first time since moving to Liverpool from AS Roma in 2017.
“I didn’t think in that moment that it would have been an all-time record if he had scored,” Klopp said. “That’s why I understand his disappointment, but: I am the coach of the whole team and in that moment we needed fresh legs. It made absolute sense from my point of view.” At least the visitors defended the point around late wild cards Harvey Elliott and Ben Doak, but a chance of their own to score only came in the closing stages after a mistake by Chelsea goalkeeper Robert Sanchez.
Such a change was “never something against Mo, of course not”, Klopp clarified. “99 per cent of the things we have achieved here, we have achieved because of him or with him. “
